[Voterescue] [EDA Data Analysis] 1-20-08 Holt's emergency bill to assure secure elections is a FRAUD.

Mon Jan 21 10:10:53 CST 2008

My guess is that Mr. Azadpour is rather a newcomer to the discussion 
of problems that the voting machines and electronic vote 
scanner/counters have brought into our elections. Otherwise, I don't 
see how he could be asking the questions he does. He certainly does 
bring up a valid point that every procedure in the process deserves 
to be reviewed for security problems that may exist. But to suggest 
that electronic voting/counting does not bring new and more ominous 
problems than any others that have existed in the past and which may 
yet exist is very naive.

Just to qualify myself a little more specifically for those like Mr. 
Azadpour who are doubting the importance of what has been said in 
this thread, I am a retired scientist/engineer whose career was spent 
in research and development of computerized systems and in modeling 
the performance of systems that extract signals from noise, i.e., 
modeling of stochastic processes and the systems that attempt to 
extract meaning from such data. I am 70 years old and have been 
working in the field of voting system audit design for the last two 
years. Some of my work is available on the NIST website as mentioned 
in my initial post on this subject.

  Jerry Lobdill

**********************************

At 09:28 PM 1/20/2008, M. Aram Azadpour wrote:

>Please, let us not go into the deep end here.
>
>How do you know you are reading this Email; or, how do you know that
>a person (not a program) wrote it; or, how do I know that when I hit the
>send-button, the text of the Email sent is the same as the one I wrote?
>Please, let us not go into the deep end here.
>
>There is a difference between making the voting "process" (and it is a
>process, meaning it is not a one-step thing; which it starts from the time
>a voter enter his/her vote; until it is counted for a candidate and everything
>in between; for example, how do you know that the truck carrying paper-ballots
>would not fall off a bridge and all paper ballots be lost; or, how do we know
>that the truck carrying paper-ballot is not highjacked and another truck w/
>forged ballots is not sent in its place; BTW, if you were of the voting age
>during JFK or LBJ's time (or if your parents were), did you-all (or 
>your parents)
>raised the same concerns about voting irregularities of that time 
>(which happened
>to work in favor of JFK and LBJ)?)... now, there is a difference 
>between making
>the voting "process" more secure and tamper-proofed than being against/for
>a particular voting-machine. At the end of the day, if "we," the 
>voting public,
>are not aware of an irregularity how do we know that voting process was clean?
>Were the American people as concerned of voting-machines in, say, 1998, 1996,
>1994, 1992, 1990, etc. as they are today? What happened in 2000 which caused
>us to become so concerned of voting machines and vote counting-process?
>
>Pls consider making the voting-process (from registering a voter, to polling
>places which are free of intimidation, to election-judges free of biases,
>to whatever else) more secured and reliable than just thinking that if voting
>machines were changed then all is going to be well and good. --Aram 
>(Grapevine, TX).
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerry Lobdill" <lobdillj at charter.net>
>To: "Brent Turner" <brent at trealestate.net>; 
><voterescue at voterescue.org>; "'EI Legislation List'" 
><eileg at lists.sonic.net>; "'Analysis EDA'" 
><analysis at electiondefensealliance.org>
>Cc: "'Art Brender'" <meganp at artbrender.com>
>Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 5:33 PM
>Subject: Re: [Voterescue] [EDA Data Analysis] 1-20-08 Holt's 
>emergency bill to assure secure elections is a FRAUD.
>
>
>>Oh yeah! And how would we know that the compiled code was a faithful
>>version of the disclosed open source even if there was such?
>>
>>Jerry
>>
>>At 12:33 PM 1/20/2008, Brent Turner wrote:
>>>Not to mention no open source / disclosure language, as Microsoft made sure-
>>>BT
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: analysis-bounces at electiondefensealliance.org
>>>[mailto:analysis-bounces at electiondefensealliance.org] On Behalf Of Jerry
>>>Lobdill
>>>Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 6:48 AM
>>>To: voterescue at voterescue.org; EI Legislation List; 'Analysis EDA'
>>>Cc: Art Brender
>>>Subject: [EDA Data Analysis] 1-20-08 Holt's emergency bill to assure secure
>>>elections is a FRAUD.
>>>
>>>Holt's emergency bill,
>>>
>>>H.R.5036
>>>
>>>Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008 (Introduced in House)
>>>is totally inadequate to assure the integrity of an election. This bill is
>>>WORTHLESS. Here is the relevant language in the bill:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c110:1:./temp/~c1103UiRUC:e2303
>>><http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c110:1:./temp/~c1103UiRUC:e2303>  :
>>>
>>>                 (c) Number of Ballots Counted Under Audit-
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>                         (1) IN GENERAL- The hand counts of the 
>>> paper ballots
>>>administered by the Election Auditor of a State, county, or equivalent
>>>location under this section with respect to an election shall occur in at
>>>least 3 percent of all precincts or equivalent locations (or alternative
>>>audit units used in accordance with the method provided for under paragraph
>>>(2)) in which ballots were cast in the election.
>>>
>>>
>>>                         (2) USE OF ALTERNATIVE SAMPLING MECHANISM-
>>>Notwithstanding paragraph (1) (and subject to the completeness requirement
>>>set forth in subsection (b)(2)), a State, county, or equivalent location may
>>>adopt and apply an alternative sampling mechanism to determine the number of
>>>paper ballots which will be subject to hand counts in accordance with this
>>>section with respect to an election, so long as the alternative sampling
>>>mechanism uses the paper ballots verified by voters or paper ballot
>>>printouts verifiable by voters at the time the vote is cast to conduct the
>>>audit and the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
>>>or a panel of 3 independent statisticians appointed by the Election Auditor
>>>of the State, county, or equivalent jurisdiction determines that the
>>>alternative sampling mechanism will be at least as statistically effective
>>>in ensuring the accuracy of the election results as the sample size
>>>specified under paragraph (1).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Dr. Holt, a physicist, knows precisely what the flaw in this language is.
>>>The question is, Why is he introducing a bill that he knows will not provide
>>>a definite and controllable probability of detection of vote fraud? The
>>>following does not even consider the damning facts that Holt's rescue bill
>>>permits the use of cash register thermal print "paper trail" records that do
>>>not bear any resemblance to the display screens a voter sees, and electronic
>>>ballot scanner/counters, which have demonstrated to be as vulnerable to
>>>fraud as the paperless voting machines.
>>>
>>>Here's an example of what will occur under the provisions of this bill.
>>>
>>>Suppose there are 1000 audit units (precincts, election districts,
>>>whatever). If you choose 3% of these (30) at random for a full hand recount,
>>>what does that buy you in terms of probability of choosing at least one
>>>corrupted audit unit?  The answer is, "It depends on the announced winning
>>>margin of votes, the distribution of audit unit size, how many units were
>>>actually corrupted in producing a fraudulent win, and the sizes of the units
>>>selected at random for audit."
>>>
>>>Just for example, suppose the precincts are all the same size, so that
>>>completely random selection is a proper strategy for audit. Suppose the
>>>margin of the winner is stated to be 5% and the corruption is evenly spread
>>>through 15 of the largest audit units (easily done by reference to county
>>>election records).
>>>
>>>What is the probability that your audit will find one of the corrupted
>>>precincts?  Why, it's about 0.37!
>>>
>>>What if the corruption is spread through 25 of the audit units? Then the
>>>probability of finding one corrupt unit in the audit is 0.66.
>>>
>>>So you see, the language of Holt's emergency bill is flawed and, considering
>>>his background and the work that was done on his previous bills before the
>>>politicos took over and emasculated them, you'd be a fool to think he is
>>>unaware of this flaw. Therefore, he is a fraudster with very high
>>>probability.
>>>
>>>You can read more about the details of why this is fraud in the following
>>>papers (which were available to Dr. Holt in 2006).
>>>
>>>Considering Vote Count Distribution in Designing Election Audits Rev.
>>>2, 11-26-06 , by Jerry Lobdill:
>>>
>>>http://vote.nist.gov/Considering-Vote-Count-Distribution-in-Designing-Electi
>>>on-Audits-Rev-2-11-26-06.pdf
>>><http://vote.nist.gov/Considering-Vote-Count-Distribution-in-Designing-Elect>>ion-Audits-Rev-2-11-26-06.pdf>
>>>
>>>Election Audit Sampling Design It's Not Just About Sampling Without
>>>Replacement 10-09-06, by Jerry Lobdill`:
>>>
>>>http://vote.nist.gov/Election-Audit-Sampling-Plan-Design-Its-Not-Just-About-
>>>Sampling-Without-Replacement-10-09-06.pdf
>>><http://vote.nist.gov/Election-Audit-Sampling-Plan-Design-Its-Not-Just-About>>-Sampling-Without-Replacement-10-09-06.pdf>
>>>
>>>Jerry Lobdill
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Voterescue mailing list
>>Voterescue at voterescue.org
>>http://voterescue.org/mailman/listinfo/voterescue_voterescue.org
>
>